Overview participating exhibitions

Terra Cognita2012

Gábor Kerekes

Over Roswell

There are claims that in 1947 a space craft with three dead extraterrestrials on board crashed near the American town of Roswell, New Mexico – a claim shrouded in mystery and source of many conspiracy theories. When Gábor Kerekes discovered the computer programme USA Photo Maps, from which it is possible to download photographic quality satellite images, he wanted to see Roswell as it looks from space. Due to a mistake in the coordinates he missed his target by some hundreds of metres... and saw geometric forms that are intended to get information across to lay persons. He printed them out and photographed the prints in large format, so that the digital image again became analogue.

Runway

Klee Land

Power Station

Behind Walls2008

Gábor Kerekes

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

In the 1970s Gábor Kerekes was one of the most prominent photographers in Hungary. His chief sources of inspiration were the absurd vision of the writer Kafka and the post-apocalyptic world (the 'Zone') from the film Stalker by the Russian director Tarkovsky. Kerekes documented the architecture of his country in a bleak, sinister style. According to him, these were images of the nightmare in which he lived. Despite its pessimistic slant, the documentary nature of his work made it difficult for would-be censors to ban it. Kerekes ceased photographing in 1982, tired of working on assignment. He destroyed almost all his photographs and donated the remainder to the Hungarian Museum for Photography. The fall of the communist regime in Hungary meant his rebirth as a photographer.

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

THE PLACE (Hungary, 1970-1980)

Biography

The Hungarian Gábor Kerekes (West Germany, 1945) makes work in which the production process and experimentation are central. He combines analogue projection, photography and heavy digital manipulation of the results to create an abstract reality.